Holy Saturday

Well, Lent is nearly over. Just a few hours left before I head off to bed. My sermon is written and the bulletins are done. I've selected clothing. I don't remember ever being this prepared for Easter morning.

Maybe it's because I'm ready for the fasting to be over and the feasting to begin. I went to the local grocery this afternoon and bought bread and milk and a few treats for tomorrow. They didn't have any cream or half/half, so my coffee won't be quite what I had hoped for, but there will be fresh buttered toast to go with it instead of stale oatmeal. And later in the day there will be lamb with fresh vegetables, and a cake for dessert.

The really surprising part of this exercise is how much I am looking forward to the basics of bread and milk. They were the only fresh things that ran out early and for which there really was no substitute. Sure, I had yoghurt and cheese, but cereal, whether hot or cold, needs milk to be right. And you can't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of crackers or hot dog buns. Standing in the bread aisle this afternoon and trying to sort out choices felt like an overabundance of riches. (For the record, I bought white bread because it's a holiday and not the whole-grain bread that I know is more nutritious.)

So the fast is over, but not the process of using up things that I have stored. I don't know yet what is the right amount to have in the freezer and in the pantry; I have a long way to go before I would be at the point of having "too little." I suspect when I get close to "just enough" I will know it; it will feel right somehow. In the weeks ahead I will return to buying fresh foods, especially the fruits and vegetables that will start to come in now. But I will be more careful about only buying what I know I can use. The fast may be over, but the process of learning to think differently about what I think I need "just in case" is not. There is more to come.

Good Friday

On Wednesday I cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and the refrigerator. Our trash pick-up day is Thursday, and I wanted to be sure things I was discarding didn't sit in the roll-out can very long. So I did my best imitation of the Jewish housewife seeking out the last traces of leaven before Passover, and cleaned out the things that were no longer edible. In my main cupboard I took everything off the shelves and sponged them down. In the fridge pulled things out to look for old storage containters, then wiped down the surfaces.

And this is the result. As you can see, there's quite a bit of empty space on the bottom shelf. This is the place where cookies and crackers and such things live. All that's left is a few goldfish, a jar of popcorn, and some dried fruit. The boxes of stale cereal are gone and that middle shelf has been reorganized so I can get at the things I use most more easily. It makes me smile every time I open it. It will make me smile even more when it has been restocked.

And this is the refrigerator. I got rid of old bottles of salad dressing and any vegetables and fruit that were old and tired. There is way more empty space in there than usual, but it's probably looking more the way it should on a regular basis. I'm going to try not to have it so full that I can't find things, because then they don't get eaten. I know I don't need to buy pickles and mustard for a while. And the tubs on the bottom shelf are dried herbs that I store there normally; they're not leftovers.

I still have to sort through the freezer and get rid of things that are freezer-burned and so old they're way past prime. I'll do that next Wednesday, before trash pick-up, and post an "after" photo then.

Dangerous Territory

Yesterday I had to venture into a grocery store for the first time since March 9th. I needed to buy matzoh for the church's Maundy Thursday communion. And I decided while I was at the Brookshire's in Monroe that I would shop for the main ingredients for my Easter dinner, knowing that I would be able to leave them alone until Sunday.

The matzoh turned out to be pita bread. When I asked if they had it, I was told they hadn't been able to convince the supplier to send it. So we will have whole-wheat pita tomorrow night. In a way that's not a bad thing. When you do communion by intinction, the juice tends to drip off the matzoh onto the nearest clean white shirt. Pita is a little more absorbant.

I was hoping to find lamb for Easter dinner, and I did. I brought home a lovely boneless leg of lamb - expensive, but worth it for a holiday dinner. To go with it I bought tiny red potatoes - one bite sized - and fresh green beans. I had hoped for asparagus, but there wasn't any. The green beans will be lovely.

The hard part was resisting the temptation to get the other things that I am out of and will need to replace next Monday. I kept thinking "it's only a few days, and I promise not to touch them until . . ." I had to stay focused and walk out of the store. I didn't even dare look at possibilities for Easter dessert, because I knew I wouldn't be able to leave it alone until Sunday. Same with Easter candy. The peeps were talking to me, but I had a good suspicion that they wouldn't even make it back to Lake Village.

The alarming part was that I spent $38 on four items. The lamb was nearly $30 of that, and of course I will get several meals out of it, but it made me realize that I'm going to have to plan and budget when I do start shopping again. The good news is that doing that might help me keep from stockpiling so much again.

Holy Week

It's Monday of Holy Week. I was afraid when I started this exercise that I'd be putting together some rather strange meals this week, using up the dregs of my stored food. But instead I'm still having culinary adventures.

Lunch today was excellent. I found some ratatouille in the back of the freezer. At first I thought it was some "stone soup" left over from one of last year's Lenten suppers, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was not. But then I realized I needed something to go with it other than crackers, so I cooked up some rotini. Once the rotini was done, I mixed it in with the ratatouille. It was looking good, but a little anemic. A jar of spaghetti sauce from the pantry fixed that. The result was a very hearty and healthy dish - just a sprinkle of parmesan cheese because it's running low - and there was enough to have it again tomorrow.

Later today I plan to make a mince pie. I found a package of piecrust in the freezer, and remembered a jar of mincemeat that's been in the pantry for a while. I'll dice up an apple to exted the mince, and by suppertime I'll have a sweet treat. That will go nicely with the eye of round steak and russet baking potato I have planned for the meal.

There are only a few things that I'm running low on that actually make a difference. Cheese is one; by the end of the week I'll be down to cheddar jack and blue. I'm stretching the peanut butter to make it last, along with the last of the saltines. There's still at least 2 servings of goldfish crackers, but that's all there is. Since I've been out of other sweets, I've been eating yoghurt and canned fruit; both of those will be gone or nearly so by the end of the week. But nearly everything else is still in good supply. I can even have 2 cups of coffee a day this week and not run out.

This morning I realized that there's another dimension to this discipline that I hadn't thought about, and I'm not sure what made me think of it now. I realized I'm rehearsing in a way for the kind of frugality I will need to practicee routinely when I retire. I'm not worried about having enough money for groceries, but being wasteful will be less of an option. Practicing now before it becomes a necessity isn't a bad thing. In fact, I'm finding that it's rather pleasant.

Hidden Treasure

Yesterday I went sorting through the freezer, mainly to see what was there in the way of meat. I don't often buy meat, so I really wasn't sure what was there. I didn't find any meat surprises, but I did find 2 salmon filets. One of them is destined to be supper later on, probably with couscous and green peas. But in the process of hunting I came across a package of whole wheat tortillas. That was as much a treat as the salmon, since the bread has been long gone. Last night for supper I cooked some bacon and made a "sandwich" with a tortilla and some shredded cheese warmed in the oven to melt the cheese and then bacon added. Not quite a quesadilla, but in that direction. It was so good, I had did the same thing this morning for breakfast. There are 3 tortillas left, and I think I have just enough bacon.

On Wednesday I leave for a week of work in Louisville, which means that I now need to start working on using up the perishables. There's one more serving of chili to go, some mushroom soup, and possibly a couple of other things. Part of the discipline has become not wasting food in addition to not hoarding it, so I'm trying not to come home to a fridge full of science experiments. That's one reason I cooked the bacon last night; I've had it a while, and it's time to use it up. If I can come up with a creative recipe in the process, so much to the good.

Negotiating the Rapids

Today's chores included a trip to Walmart to stock up on cat food and replenish a few non-grocery supplies before my trip next week. I had done this last week without incident, but I knew that today would include at least one hazard. I found more. First was the row of carts near the front door with some close-out items marked way down. Like a twin box of Stove Top Stuffing for 25 cents! On any normal Thursday I would have bought at least 4 (after checking the expiration date to make sure it wasn't too far gone). I mean, it's a quarter! And sure, I don't normally buy stuffing mix because it's salty and overpriced, but for a quarter, I can work it in. But I also know that a year from now at least 2 of those boxes would still be in the pantry, now being pushed aside because the expiration date is getting a bit "iffy," but of course not throwing them out because "it's perfectly good food." Second was the foray into the grocery side of the store to buy coffee filters. It's easier to avoid temptation by simply not going where you know it's going to jump out and bite you, like staying out of the cookie aisle when you're on a diet. But I wasn't ready to do without coffee for the next 4 weeks just because I was out of filters. So I went, resolutely looked away from the bread side of the aisle, got the filters, and escaped. But then there was the check-out line, with its rows of candy bars and snacks, and my real desire for a soft drink, especially knowing that it was "happy hour" at Sonic, and drinks were half price. My lunch had been skimpy, and I haven't had a Sprite for nearly a week, and it was hard to just pay for my purchases and go directly home, without passing Go and collecting $200. I managed. I paid attention to the things that tempted me, recognized the impulses for what they were, and moved on. The world did not come to an end; it didn't even notice. It's all good.

You Win Some . . .

Meals today were rather a mixed bag. Breakfast was cheese grits made with some of the lovely yellow corn grits I brought back from Atlanta. I found a clump of mold in the shredded cheddar, but I was able to remove it, and the rest of the cheese was fine. The mold is a sign that I need to use that cheese soon, so I know what breakfast will be for the next few days. Lunch was less successful. I had taken some ground beef out of the freezer, and decided to do something with it over pasta, but tomato sauce wasn't doing it for me, so I started with onions and mushrooms. I remembered a can of cream of mushroom soup, so a dollop of that made the sauce. But somehow it was rather blah in the end. It needed something to give it a lift. Sour cream maybe. I'll try again in a few days; there is more soup. Supper tonight, however, was another hit. I found a nice steak, and put it under the broiler. The only fresh potato I had was a russet, and since I was broiling the steak, that put the oven out of commission. Tater tots cooked in oil in the skillet were a fine substitute; they come out so much more crispy and lovely than when done in the oven, but there is the added fat. I finished off the plate with some green peas. In the end I had a better dinner than I could have gotten at any restaurant in town. There was even dessert - some fudge I made yesterday. There are good things buried in the freezer. The problem is just that - they're buried. And sometimes by the time I find them, they're not so good any more. I'm hoping that when there's less there, I'll be able to find and use the good things I've put in there for safe keeping.

Random Thoughts

Yesterday I went to a meeting. The folks who hosted the meeting thoughtfully provided breakfast treats for us to enjoy before we got down to business. The egg casserole and sweet rolls didn't interest me at all, but there was some fresh fruit, so I put a few pieces on my plate. Then I spotted the real treasure. On a separate table there were two toasters, and loaves of homemade bread sliced and ready. After a week without bread, I couldn't have been happier if they had served lobsters (actually, it was a little early in the day for lobsters). That slice of bread almost justified the 2 1/2 hour trip all by itself. Lesson learned: a bit of abstinence can make something ordinary into something extraordinary. Today I broke out a box of ribbon candy I had found lurking in the back of the pantry closet last week when I was looking for rice. I have no idea when I bought it; I hope it was Christmas 2009, but it could well have been 2008. The plastic wrapper over the tin was intact, so I wasn't too worried about it. But in the end I was disappointed. Even through the plastic, the candy had absorbed water and turned soft. Chewy ribbon candy is a little disconcerting, but I was desperate for something sweet, so I ate a piece anyway. I won't throw it away for the same reason; there isn't much sweet in the house except for some jam, and sometimes I just crave sweets. But I don't plan to keep it for Christmas 2011. Lesson learned: sometimes saving something for a special occasion means you end up with nothing, or at least nothing special. The freezer is finally starting to show some empty space. There's room for more ice cube trays. So far I have discovered a bag of raspberries, a lamb chop, and a bag of dinner rolls. There are treats in my future.

Sometimes Discipline Just Isn't Exciting

I sat down at the computer just now to write a blog entry because I hadn't written one since Sunday, and realized there wasn't anything exciting to write about just now. When I ran the dishwasher this morning there were a good bunch of plastic storage containers in it, but that still doesn't translate into visible evidence of stored food consumption yet. At least not in any dramatic way. I still have a bit of milk, I still have butter and eggs. There are no shortages of anything to report, just continued awareness of limited resources which must still be used or else be wasted.

But that's the way discipline is at times. Most of the time, probably. And I think it's that lack of drama once the "new" has worn off that makes it so difficult. It doesn't matter whether the discipline is using the food that's in the house, exercising, staying away from junk food, or reading good books, once it becomes routine, there's nothing much to say about it. The very fact that it has become routine means that you've achieved what you set out to achieve, but that doesn't make it any more exciting. It just is. Nothing more needs to be said.

Which is where my Lenten discipline is right now. Something that I am aware of regularly, if not daily. Something that I believe will ultimately make my life better. Something that right now is just routine. Thanks be to God.

Awareness

I can't say much has gone from my freezer or my pantry. What I can say us that I'm more aware of wasting food than I usually am.

Case in point - a quart of milk lurking behind the iced tea pitcher. Had not been opened; had an expiration date of 2/20. On a normal day I would have poured it out and gone to the store to buy another quart which could well sit unopened until I poured it out. But now, because I'm not buying groceries, this is the last quart of milk in the world. It smelled ok; drinking it straight or even putting it on cold cereal didn't sound attractive, but it certainly seemed like it could be used in recipes.

So Friday morning I pulled down the box of Bisquick and decided to make a batch of pancakes. I realized that in addition to a cup of milk, these pancakes would take 2 of my precious 6 eggs, but I also realized I would get more than one meal out of the batch so it was ok. I made the pancakes, which were fine, stored the rest in the fridge and went on with the day.

Saturday I used another cup of milk in a bowl of oatmeal, made my favorite way with dried cranberries. This very plebian food now became special because I was using my precious milk to make it.

I still have 2 cups of milk left. I know I will need to use it by Tuesday at the latest, so tomorrow I will hunt up something else I can make with it that will have a longer shelf life. I hope it won't call for eggs.

It's Thursday

Thursdays are easy days in my Lenten discipline. I eat lunch in Lake Providence, and one of my parishioners buys my lunch, so I don't have to deal with the dilemma of whether to buy something there or bring something from home. And supper is at the church here, where we all contribute something to add to a pot of "stone soup," so I only had to come up with a cupful of something. (Tonight it's bean soup, so I chopped some onion and some celery and "sweated" them to make them ready to reheat.)

I did deliberately choose a chef's salad for lunch, knowing that fresh things will very shortly be in short supply. And it is that time of year when I start to get a taste for fresh greens and such again, after not wanting any form of cold food all winter. I also saved my crackers and bread-sticks for a "rainy day."

After the lunch and Bible study I headed to Walmart to stock up on non-food things. I was a bit dismayed to discover that I spent $100 without buying any food except for the dog and the cats. But that included quite a list of cleaners and detergents, which I buy every 6 months or so. In fact, knowing I wouldn't have groceries to lug made it easier to stock up on the things that I knew I would need in the near future. This is not an area where I have a tendency to hoard; I have gradually used up all the cleaners and such that I tried and didn't really like, or just threw them out in some move or another. So I wasn't worried that I was substituting one form of hoarding for another. Even so, the total was a bit of a shock. I guess I really don't pay attention to how much stuff costs.

I'm down to the last slice and the heels of the bread. I don't usually use the heels, but I think I will save these in the fridge, since they are the very last fresh bread I will see for over a month. Just in case there is an emergency need for a peanut butter fold-over. It's grits and oatmeal forbreakfast from here out, with an occasional egg. All is well.

Seeing Is Believing

The first week of Lent is already gone, and I can't see much difference in my long-term food storage places. Because of that I decided it wasn't too late to post some pictures, hoping that there will indeed be a visible difference by the end of April.

The first picture is my freezer. As you can see there's not a lot of room there. I didn't bother to photograph the door; it's full too. The bottom level is mostly vegetables; the top level has some prepared meals, some frozen leftovers, and anything else that needed a place. As you can see, I did get 2 ice cube trays in, but the fish filets had to go on top because otherwise they stuck out too far for the door to close properly.

The next picture is my pantry, at least the part of it that holds the majority of my canned goods. Things like crackers and cereal are stored in cabinets in my kitchen. Because I'm short, I don't put things I really want to reach on the top shelf. So the pantry is where canned goods live. As you can see, I have enough soup to eat nothing else for 2 weeks, and more canned vegetables than I can reasonably expect to use in the next month. Above the soup I have cans of tuna, sardines, and then fruit. At the very top are extra condiments and salad dressings. I'm a little scared to look at expiration dates on the stuff that's up there. Maybe I'll go through that stuff before I restock after Easter.


Finally, there needed to be a picture of my "tea cupboard." Okay, there's also some hot chocolate mix up there, but almost all of it is tea. The box of Luzianne is one that came from my Dad's kitchen in 2001; it's the box I'm using to make iced tea right now. At the beginning of the week there was another box of Luzianne up there as well; at least I managed to empty something.

So far I've been mostly using up fresh things. The bread will be gone by the weekend. Crackers are going to be in short supply by the end of the month. I'm hoping that there's some margarine lurking in the back of the fridge because I only have 2 1/2 sticks of butter. I also have less cheese than I thought.

But the point is to make do with what I have, not worry about what I don't have. I certainly am in no danger of going hungry. It will be a while before I go through all that soup.

A Symptom of the Problem

As I was listing things in my mind yesterday that I knew I was going to run out of shortly, and should therefore consider making exceptions to the "no-buy" plan, I realized one of them would be the Sprite I've become accustomed to since I caught cold back in January. I think it was the Sprite that made me say "no exceptions." Somehow I couldn't justify buying a soft drink that I shouldn't be having in such quantity anyway.

And I realized that I have plenty of tea. I have an overabundance of tea. I have tea bags that came from my Dad's kitchen in 2001. I can easily keep a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge and drink that instead of Sprite. It's cheaper, it has no sugar, and it does just as good a job at cutting through the phlegm as the lemon and bubbles. So, as I drank the last half of the one Sprite I was going to allow myself for the day, I made a pitcher of tea.

Making the tea made me realize I would need ice in order for it to truly be called "iced tea." And I make my tea very strong, so it needs the dilution of the melting ice to make it a refreshing beverage. Only one problem - my freezer is so full there's no room for ice cube trays. I did manage to squeeze in two, but only with quite a bit of maneuvering.

And that's the symptom of the problem. When the freezer is too full to make ice, it's too full. And it's not like I'm stocking up for a party, or I just made a big pot of soup and have frozen the leftovers. It's just stuff I've bought thinking someday I will eat it. Summer is coming; I need to be able to make ice.

A Different Kind of Lenten Fast

I know Lent started last Wednesday, but it just occurred to me this morning that the discipline I've chosen this year might make an interesting blog. The first post might be late, but the discipline did actually begin on Ash Wednesday.

What I've chosen to do this year is not buy groceries until after Easter. I have a freezer crammed full of stuff, some of which is probably well freezer-burned by now. I have a pantry full of canned goods, at least some of which are well past their expiration dates. And yet every week I go to the store and buy more. To be sure, some of what I buy are things like bread and milk that cannot be stocked up. Some are convenience foods, frozen dinners I keep on hand for the nights I don't have time or energy to cook. But other things I buy just because I think I need them, and then never actually use.

One of the worst ways I waste money at the grocery store is buying fresh fruits and vegetables that sit in the refrigerator until they become compost. I'm so tempted by them in their fresh loveliness that I can't resist saying "Of course I will cook and eat this." And I might do well for a couple of days. But before long I'm back to old habits, and the Wednesday night routine of checking the fridge for things that need to go out with the trash pickup in the morning.

So I'm going to get off that treadmill for a while and see what happens. I suspect some of the menus might get interesting before Easter arrives. But I doubt I will run out of food.

This morning I realized that I will run out of bread and milk before the end of this week. That made me wonder if perhaps I shouldn't make an exception for these two items. Then I thought about coffee, and whether it, too, might be an exception. And I very quickly realized there were at least half a dozen items I could justify/rationalize making an exception for, and that made me say "No! No exceptions." Yes, I will run out of bread and milk. I may have to ration my coffee to make it last (I put the last of this morning's pot in a carafe and put it in the fridge instead of pouring it out.). But I have the skills to make bread, and I have at least some yeast in the pantry. I have rice and couscous and pasta. Instead of cold cereal with milk I can have oatmeal and grits. In other words, I will manage.

Other than those realizations, there hasn't been any real impact yet. The freezer is full. The pantry is full. I will have to think about how I am going to prepare meals for MJ and Dan, since MJ will be here for a week, but I think I can manage. I know there's meat in the freezer. And there's a large container of chili. I'm not going to worry past that. This exercise is about not worrying, being content with what there is instead of rushing out to buy something new. Stay tuned.